Guidance

Handling projects on your own can certainly save you a lot of money.  Unfortunately, it can also cost you a lot of money if you make mistakes, damage materials or have to hire a professional to finish the project. 

DIY projects can range from putting together a children’s swing set, to retiling your bathroom.  Depending on your current skill levels and the amount of experience you have, these projects can be easy and quick or daunting and frustrating. 

However, even if you’re inexperienced, you can learn how to tackle common DIY projects successfully.  Before you start, you will need to learn the language of the task, and determine whether or not it’s the right DIY project for you. 

1. Choose Your Project Wisely:  If you’re a beginner to do it yourself projects, remodelling your kitchen is probably not the place to start.  However, you can quite likely handle putting up some tiles for your backsplash. 

Choosing smaller projects can help you build your experience, as well as finding out where your strengths and weaknesses are.  It also helps you discover whether you’ve got the time and patience to take on bigger projects.

1. Ask the Experts First:  Find someone in the know at your local home building center and play twenty questions.  Do this before you invest any money into materials for your project. 

There are a couple things you need to know before you start the DIY project.  First, do you understand the language when it comes to parts and practices?  If you’re lost in the muddle of rivets and grommets the associate is telling you about, it might be wise to pick a different project. 

Second, find out which tools will be needed for the job.  If it means investing a great deal of money into very specialized tools you’ll never use again, doing it yourself might become more expensive than hiring the job out. 

1. Watch Videos:  Again, before you spend any of your money on materials, take a peek around YouTube or home improvement sites for videos showing how the job is done.  Can you follow along?  Does it seem relatively easy or long and complicated.  Watch a couple different videos to get different ideas.  If, after watching the videos, you’re still not clear on what the job entails, it’s probably beyond your current experience level and you should choose a simpler DIY job.

1. Read the Instructions First!:  Whether you’re building a cabinet to house your television, or putting together a new baby crib, the instructions should be read and understood before you start. 

This saves time, so you’ll have the tools you need at hand, helps you organize parts in the order they’ll be used, and also alerts you to anything that’s missing.  Reading the instructions as you go (or worse, ignoring them altogether), is the biggest reason that small DIY projects either fail or take four times longer than they should.  For the two minutes it takes to read the directions, you’ll save yourself hours of stress and headaches.